Gun Trader's Guide

This is the book for you! It has great pictures of each model. I have used it to help identify firearms and it comes in handy for grading firearms.

Overall I feel this is a good buy as I have identified several older model weapons without much trouble. However, trying to find more recent model guns has been dismal. For example try to find any of the new Sig Sauer pistols or any of the new Derringers! Anyway, I have identified a couple of H & R pistols (pretty neat trick, good black and white photos helped tremendously) and a couple of rifles (one a Winchester rifle and you know how many flavors of those exist!) again by picture then description. I like how the book is broken into three sections (pistol, rifle, shotgun). The pistol part is broken into semi-auto then revolver for each company presented. I would have liked to have a more comprehensive breakout of new weapons (as I mentioned before) and more information on the various companies (some had nothing but an address...if that), but all in all a must have books for my library. A good buy.

This book is a good, quick reference for most available firearms, and has some particularly good sections on older arms, such as the early 20th century Luger pistols. It does seem to be missing some of the more common retail products (for example, finding and identifying the rifles sold at most Wal-Mart stores was difficult, or they weren't included...yet these are more likely to be found in circulation than a pre-64 Model 70). There were good black-and-white illustrations of many guns, but some guns had no photos and this is a drawback...especially if you are trying to identify an old family gun or the like.Overall, it is still worth the price, and I recommend it as a supplement to some of the other more exhaustive works.

A must have for anyone buying or selling a firearm